David Cameron: Anyone involved in horse meat cover-up will face full force of law

Two UK meat plants have been raided by the Food Standards Agency (Picture: AP)

The prime minister has warned anyone involved in passing off horse meat as beef will face the full brunt of the law after two UK plants were raided and closed down.

David Cameron defended the government’s response to the growing scandal and added it would push for ‘meaningful’ tests on products by retailers and suppliers.

‘If there has been criminal activity there should be the full intervention of the law,’ he said.

The government and food safety officials have said they are shocked that UK processing plants may be implicated in the horse meat scandal, as two facilities were targeted by authorities last night.

Meat and documents were seized from the Peter Boddy slaughterhouse in Todmorden, West Yorkshire, and Farmbox Meats at Llandre in Aberystwyth, West Wales, by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) on Tuesday.

As environment secretary Owen Paterson travels to Brussels for an EU summit on the horse meat affair, the FSA said it appeared the two plants were involved in a ‘blatant misleading of consumers’ where horse meat was used in burgers and kebabs.

David Cameron defended the government’s response to the horsemeat scandal (Picture: EPA)

Tests on the ‘detained’ meat are due to be completed by Friday.

Andrew Rhodes, FSA director of operations, said: ‘I ordered an audit of all horse producing abattoirs in the UK after this issue first arose last month and I was shocked to uncover what appears to be a blatant misleading of consumers.

‘I have suspended both plants immediately while our investigations continue.’

Mr Paterson added: ‘This is absolutely shocking. It’s totally unacceptable if any business in the UK is defrauding the public by passing off horse meat as beef.

‘I expect the full force of the law to be brought down on anyone involved in this kind of activity.’

Environment secretary Owen Paterson will hold talks with industry representatives for the second time four days (Picture: PA)

But Mr Boddy denied his abattoir had been raided at all.

‘It was not a raid – they are welcome to visit whenever they want, they just wanted to see my records which I will be showing them,’ he said.

French officials have said firms in Romania, Cyprus and the Netherlands, as well as France, are all involved in passing off horse meat as beef, although Romania’s prime minister Victor Ponta has said there is no evidence his country is implicated.

Waitrose meanwhile has withdrawn its beef British Essential Frozen Meatballs after pork was detected in samples.